a case study
The scope of this case study is to identify problems in IKEA app. These problems have been identified through research on the user experience of 10 customers. IKEA is one of the largest furniture companies in the world. It has a great variety of products with useful, simple and minimalistic designs.
OBJECTIVE
Identify usability issue in the IKEA App.
PROJECT SCOPE
UI/UX – Analysis: User survey – User Persona – WAAD
Wireframes and Low-Fidelity Prototype
TOOLS
Illustrator – Photoshop – Axure RP
Users think it’s not easy to find items.
When we search for a product through the app, we see different “categories”. Users have found these categories confusing.
Consistency and user control.
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform and industry conventions. Users often perform actions by mistake. They need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted action.
Users emotional experience.
The IKEA app has a function that allows to place the furniture in a real space using augmented reality. However, users still prefer to shop in person.
I propose a redesign of search functionality. The information we display to the user should be rearranged so that we have a more intuitive design.
Users expect the same experience on different devices. IKEA website and app should have the same features and use the same labels and have the same navigation items.
The app should have a VR section where I can observe an item in the same way I’d do in the shop. The items should have a greater image resolution.
I started my analysis process by analyzing IKEA biggest competitor, their strengths and their weaknesses.
I proceeded with a survey to understand which factors cause the biggest frustrations to IKEA app users.
One of the most powerful method to conduct my analysis, was by using the Heuristic Evaluation. This method is useful for e-commerce analysis because it can isolate a lot of usability problems.
A Work Affinity Activity Diagram (WAAD) helped me to synthesize the analysis result and the creation of a User Persona made me better understand users and their needs.
SOLUTION TO PROBLEM 1: Difficult to find items – shop by category and rooms
The app allows to search for items by category or by room. These first sequence of displays show the actual path in case we want to find an item by category. This is not intuitive. The option “category” shouldn’t be a chip in the same bar of the filters.
This is instead the search by “room”. There’s no consistency between this option in the app and the website. As we can see in the display #1 it is impossible to understand the rooms from the pictures. We can use the top bar to select a specific room. In the display #2 we find another problem. Once again the pictures shown are not able to make me understand which category of that room I’m clicking on.
I propose that the app should immediately suggest searching by room or by category. When I open one of them the division should be clear with appropriate images.
SOLUTION TO PROBLEM 2: Consistency and User Control
The inconsistency between the IKEA website and app can create confusion among the users. I expect the app and the website to have the same filter options. One of this is for example the possibility to filter items by them size.
During the check-out, I can’t modify my items and this is a problem. I can delete them or modify quantities only from the cart (first display). I would like to select the quantity of the items I will be purchasing as I add them to the cart.
These strategic enhancements will significantly improve user engagement and satisfaction with the IKEA app.